34 of his own. I ne\ er (lId 1earn to read Greek, as tlungs turned out, and the translatIons of HOlller I have gone through always ,;eelTI pallid, because I can't help cOlnparing theln with Uncle Addison's translations. He could rip out the story of Polyphe1l1US, for ex- alnple, so effectively that 111Y sister and I would pitch and toss for weeks after- ward with nighttnares about the one- eyed ogre who devoured all those sailors and lnunched up their bones like chin- quapIns. On the night of the corpse parOXYSln, Uncle Addison read a sentence from Hent} that said, "The 1l1an was so badly injured that they carried hun back to calnp ahnost a corpse." lVly sister inter- rupted and asked what a corpse was. Uncle AddIson put the book down and said, "I will explain that, lny dear, but first we will see if this young gentleman here knows what a corpse is." He Ineant lne. His nickname for lne-I don't know why-was Colonel. He was es- pecially polite to lne, because he under- stood that I felt silly being the youngest Presbyterian in the world. When I protested about not being included, at the age of six, in rabbit-hunting expedi- tions and cross-country bicycle trips, he would reason with lne gently and say, "But, Colonel, you see your legs are too short, that's all." (V\Then I achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel in World War II, the prolnotion had a curious effect on lne, in that when peo- ple started calling lne Colonel, I always felt as if I weren't there, where I was supposed to be, but was sitting at Uncle Addison's knee in lny nightgown, and that my legs were too short.) "Colo- nel," Uncle Addison asked me, "do you know what a corpse is?" I think now that he was stalling for time, de- ciding how best to explain the word to us. I know I was stalling for time, and for a different reason. I hated to adlnit there was anything I didn't know, and I loved to delnonstrate, whenever I could, that I was S111arter than 111Y slightly older sister. I asked Uncle Addison to read the <;entence agai]Ø. He picked up the book and read, "The lnan was so badly injured that they carrIed hÎ1n back to calnp ahnost a corpse." I decIded to hazard a guess. "I think a corpse must be about three-quarters of a lnile," I saId, and the corpse parox} SIn was on. Aunt Fanny set off one of these lnirth orgies at one of our Sunday dinners, and she did it more or less deliberately. She was one of m} mother's older sisters. Her clergylnan husband was TH[Y WON'T ß[LI[V[, ON N[W Y[AR'S [V[ THAT NE.W Y[AR.'S DAY WILL COME WHAT MAY How do I feel today? I feel as unfit as an unfiddle, And it is the result of a certain turbulence In the lnind and an uncertaIn burbulence in the lniddle. What was it, anyway, that angry thing that flew at me? I am unused to banshees crying Boo at lne Your wife can't be a banshee- Or can she? Of course, SOlne wives beCOlne less fond When you're bottled in bond. My Uncle George, in lavender-scented Aunt Edna's day, If he had a glass of beer on Saturday night, he dIdn't dare COlTIe hOlTIe till the following Wednesday. I see now that he had hit upon the ideal idea: The passage of tÎ1ne, and plenty of it, is the only 1l1drital panacea. Ah, If the passage of tÎ1ne were backward, and last night I'd been a child again, this morning I'd be fragrant wIth orange juice, Instead of reekIng of pinch-bottle foreign juice; But if I should turn out to be a child again, what would life hold for me? The woman I love would be too old for lne. There's only one solution to my proble1l1-a hair of the dog or lnaybe a couple of hairs; Then, if she doesn't get lnad at lne, life will he peaceful, înd if she does, it will show she really cares -OGDEN NASH . Uncle John. The} had turned out a batch of first COUSIns, several of whom had already grown up and become Presbyterian clergYlnen, and one of who In was a certaIn Cousin Frank, a notorious lnan. ...t\lthough Aunt Fanny was as Presbyterian as anybody else, she had a pert disposition and sOlnetÎ1nes llsed to twit her brother-in-law, Uncle Addison, about his excessive religious zeal. On this Sunday, Uncle Addison was telling about a very sick old lady he had visited on his way hOlne fro In church. It seelned that she was suffer- ing a great deal of pain and yet might live on, the doctors said, almost indefi- nitely. "I intend to pray to the Lord that he release that poor sou] from these lnortal coils," said Uncle Addison piously. "Brother i\ddison," said Aunt Fan- " d ' . ny, 0 you lnean to sa} you re gOIng to pray for her to die right now, di- . rectly, when she lnight easily live on awhIle? " "I do indeed, Sister Fanny," saId Uncle Addison, and pressed his lips to- gether until they disappeared. "Well, just you let me tell you one thing, Brother Addison," said Aunt Fanny. "When I get sick and COln- lnence to suffer like that poor soul, don't you pray on lne to die'" She shook her finger under his goatee. "Don't you pray on lne to die. You hear, Brother Addison? No lnatter how lnuch I'ln suffering, I intend to hang on as long as is hUlnanly possible, and I want no interference froln you and your prayers , Why, Brother Addison, if you utter so much as a skilnption of that kind of prayer on lne, I prolnise you I'll not so much as speak to you when you get to Heaven, you hear I'll turn lny back on you and flap lny wings spang in your face!" This set Mother off into a gale, and everybody followed her into it, with the exception of Uncle Addison. He wasn't alnused, and kept lnuttering off and on about Aunt Fanny and her frivolousness for months. Mother told lne lnany years afterward that he had gone so far as to hint to her and SOlne of the other close kin that Aunt Fanny lacked some of the true Presbyterian virtues and that these gaping flaws in her character were probably what had sown the seeds of heresy that had caused the notorious Cousin Frank to lnake such a disgrace